1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns: a method to automatically calculate a maximum pulse length of an excitation pulse for a magnetic resonance examination, as well as a magnetic resonance apparatus and an electronically readable data storage medium for implementing such a method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Magnetic resonance (MR) is a known modality with which images of the inside of an examination subject can be generated. Expressed in a simplified form, the examination subject is positioned in a strong, static, homogeneous basic magnetic field (also called a B0 field) with a field strength from 0.2 Tesla to 7 Tesla or more in a magnetic resonance apparatus, such that the nuclear spins of the examination subject orient along the basic magnetic field. To trigger magnetic resonance signals, radio-frequency excitation pulses (RF pulses) are radiated into the examination subject, and the triggered magnetic resonance signals are detected and entered at data points in an electronic memory organized in a manner known as k-space images are reconstructed or spectroscopy data are determined from the k-space data. For spatial coding of the measurement data, rapidly switched magnetic gradient fields are superimposed on the basic magnetic field. The acquired measurement data are digitized and stored as complex numerical values in a k-space matrix in the memory. An associated MR image can be reconstructed from the k-space matrix populated with values, for example by a multidimensional Fourier transformation.
Sequences with very short echo times TE—for instance TE less than 0.5 milliseconds—offer new fields of application for nuclear magnetic resonance tomography. They enable the depiction of substances that cannot be depicted with conventional sequences such as (T)SE ((Turbo) Spin Echo) or GRE (gradient echo) since their respective decay time of the transversal magnetization M2 is markedly shorter than the possible echo times of the conventional sequences, and their signal has therefore already decayed at the point in time of acquisition. In contrast, with echo times in the range of these decay times it is possible to depict the signals of these substances in an MR image, for example. The decay times T2 of teeth, bones or ice lie between 30 and 80 microseconds, for example.
The application of sequences with ultrashort echo times (UEZ sequences) enables (for example) bone and/or dental imaging and/or the depiction of cryoablations by means of MR, and is usable for MR-PET (combination of MR and positron emission tomography, PET) or PET attenuation correction.
Examples of UEZ sequences are: UTE (“Ultrashort Echo Time”), for example as it is described in the article by Sonia Nielles-Vallespin, “3D radial projection technique with ultrashort echo times for sodium MRI: Clinical applications in human brain and skeletal muscle”, Magn. Res. Med. 2007, 57, Pages 74-81; PETRA (“Pointwise Encoding Time reduction with Radial Acquisition”) as it is described by Grodzki et al. in “Ultra short Echo Time Imaging using Pointwise Encoding Time reduction with Radial Acquisition (PETRA)”, Proc. Intl. Soc. Mag. Reson. Med. 19 (2011), Page 2815; or z-TE as it is described by Weiger et al. in “MRI with zero echo time: hard versus sweep pulse excitation”, Magn. Reson. Med. 66 (2011), Pages 379-389.
In these sequences, usually a hard delta pulse is radiated as a radio-frequency excitation pulse and the data acquisition is subsequently begun. In PETRA or z-TE, the gradients are already activated during the excitation. The spectral profile of the excitation pulse hereby corresponds approximately to a sin c function. Given insufficient pulse bandwidth or too-strong gradients, it can occur that the outer image regions are no longer sufficiently excited. In the reconstructed MR image, this incorrect excitation has the effect of blurring artifacts at the image edge, which are more strongly pronounced the stronger the gradients that are switched during the excitation.
An insufficient excitation thus leads to artifact-plagued MR images. This problem has previously for the most part been negligible. At most, it is sought to optimally reduce the strength of the gradients. However, imaging-relevant variables (such as the readout bandwidth, the repetition time TR and the contrast of the image) therefore change as well. For example, a reduction of the gradient strength increases the minimum necessary repetition time TR, and therefore also the total measurement time. Such artifacts could furthermore be reduced in that the excitation pulses are chosen to be particularly short in order to increase the excitation width. However, the maximum possible flip angle and the precision of the actual emitted RF excitation pulse are therefore simultaneously reduced proportional to the duration of the RF excitation pulse. For example, given a duration of the excitation pulse of 14 microseconds the maximum flip angle is approximately 9°, and given a reduced duration of the excitation pulse to 7 microseconds it would be only approximately 4.5°. Therefore, this procedure is also not usable without limitation and causes a degradation of the image quality.